


This Is How Paris Was

by GingerNinjaAbi



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Omg what am I even doing, and christmas scenes it's happening, i just wanted Paris in autumn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerNinjaAbi/pseuds/GingerNinjaAbi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whether Paris is dressed for autumn, Christmas or cold spring days, some parts of that old city never change.<br/>Or where Enjolras and Grantaire hold hands throughout most of the year, perhaps because of the inexplicable sense that things should end that way.</p><p>Part of 'But Paris was a very old city and we were young'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. October 23rd

Paris that day was washed in grey and orange and yellow.

Leaves were sodden on the boulevards, lit by car headlights that had flickered on in hours that had been lit by warm sunlight only a month ago, a month when they’d all sat along the Île Saint-Louis and watched the sun dip away from the city. The yellows and reds from cars now blinked on as day seeped out of Paris. The afternoon had been overcast, grey cloud seeming to descend ever lower towards the rooftops with their twisted chimneys and haphazard windows, and Enjolras shivered slightly as he headed past one of the many café’s, his hands in the pockets of his coat as he ignored the windows steamed from the cold, gaze fixed on the crowd ahead of him. 

The edges of exhaustion were weighing on his eyelids after a full day of lectures, seemingly futile seminars and leading a meeting for the university’s political activism society with Combeferre, Feuilly and Courfeyrac. October had instilled a sense of pressure about him in a way that September hadn’t. But perhaps that was due to the day’s closing in, night sweeping across the city so much sooner, sweeping on with it the blinking lights of the Eiffel Tower and the lampposts along the riverbank.

Enjolras would have mourned summer if he’d fully stopped to consider it. Not just for days that had radiated warmness, but for the way Grantaire had felt beside him as they’d sat in the Jardin des Tuileries, his shoulder pressed against his own as August sunshine had crowned their heads. 

He caught sight of his own reflection as he sidestepped the flow of pedestrians, darkened blue and slightly distorted in the window of a passing bus, accompanied with a flash of red from the winter coat he’d begun to wear again. He looked tired, he reflected, underneath the stern expression he so often wore without realizing it. Perhaps he was more aware of it now, he considered, habits he’d become conscious of, attuned as he was to Grantaire’s teasing words in a way he’d never noticed this time last year. He’d notice his own abrasiveness, he’d linger on his obsessiveness, and so much of his waking thought was devoted to a war, one that felt never-ending, but one that he _knew_ must end. Thoughts of that would drive his mind, perhaps in a narrow and almost selfish way. And guilt sometimes lit quietly along his mind when he considered that he didn’t want to change.

Grantaire was on his mind now, his being wandering so easily into Enjolras’s thoughts, like always. His mind had conjured up the image of him from the previous night, the way he’d been splayed on the sofa at Courfeyrac and Marius’s apartment, bare footed as he’d flung jokes and comments loudly across the room, rolling cigarettes with quick-moving, slender fingers. Enjolras had watched him, and wondered why it had been only a few months ago that he’d first noticed that tattoo, dark and small as it curled along Grantaire’s inner wrist, and that resentment at himself, that he’d taken so long to notice so much, would always lie in his heart. 

A harassed looking businessman hit against his shoulder, instilling him with the thought that he should be looking where he was headed, and not letting his mind seep full of mocking eyes and twisting smiles. But anything along the lines of ‘letting’ when his head and heart came to Grantaire seemed oddly non-existent. 

It didn’t take him long to cross the Place Saint-Michel, the stream of traffic slow as he moved between car bonnets and agitated mopeds, drivers eagerly on their way home from their nine to five lives. Notre Dame was just out of his sight now behind the tall buildings, the Seine grey before it. The fountain to his right was crashing water onto stone, the sound drowned out by car horns and thrumming engines that would soon be steaming the air when the weather grew ever colder. 

The trees lining the square were fading, leaves stained gently with dying browns and oranges, colours mixing like the watercolours Grantaire would use on days when his smiles came easier and his shoulders weren’t hunched, and his fingers didn’t shake when he laced them through Enjolras’s. 

He was where he’d said he’d be, in a deliberately poorly spelt text. 

Grantaire’s hands were in the pockets of the coat he wore, a clashing yellow and black parka he’d received when he’d joined the university’s kickboxing society last month. His head was tilted as he watched the traffic streaming by the riverside, a clash of curls and a dark shadow of stubble all that Enjolras could see of his features. But he’d know him anywhere. Amongst the two million that walked these streets, amongst the seven billion who walked the earth he so wanted to change. 

He considered that maybe the verses Jehan would force on him occasionally were starting to rub off somewhat.

Grantaire turned round before Enjolras reached him, his eyes lighting on him as he approached, that look he always reserved just for him spreading across his face. A face drawn and pale and clashing from the shadows spanning under his eyes. That look that seemed to both drink him in and mock him and every time Enjolras’s heart responded with an erratic slip. 

He couldn’t help his fingers reaching for him, a hand closing familiarly about his arm. Grantaire’s coat rasped beneath his fingers, cold and wax-like as he leant down to kiss him, fingers on the warm skin at the nape of his neck, the fleecy inside of the coat’s neck soft on his knuckles. The low, muted intake of air Grantaire emitted as he leant forwards made Enjolras tighten his grip on the jacket, Grantaire’s lips warm against his, the taste of him a light lacing of nicotine and mint, the scent of him washing over Enjolras and sending his head reeling, like he’d forgotten that slightly spicy scent of his aftershave, and he was spinning with the new cold, fresh smell that was clinging to his hair and skin from the autumnal air. 

“Well good afternoon to you too.” Grantaire finally smirked when their lips parted, Grantaire sinking back slightly, strands of Enjolras’s hair slipping from his curls where they’d somehow tangled. A flush had spread itself high across Grantaire’s cheeks, his chin dipping towards the collar of his coat. But his hands didn’t retreat to his pockets, they stayed laced in Enjolras’s, cold fingers stained red by the chill. 

Even now, with his skin cold and icy, Grantaire’s touch made Enjolras’s blood rush, warm and dizzying, and it didn’t feel new anymore, it felt warm and familiar, but it still sent his head spinning, some part of his insides flipping in a way he didn’t think he’d ever get used to. 

Their hands still shook when they pressed close at night, Grantaire’s breaths shuddering and soft against Enjolras’s neck. And Enjolras’s head span with it, hot breaths against his bare skin, the press of his forehead against his collarbones, soft hair against him as low gasps filled his ears, low curses against throats bared from pulled hair.

Grantaire pulled away now as his phone vibrated, clearing his throat as he dug it from his pocket, the small, smug smile he was wearing still pulling slightly at his lips. He studied  
the phone a moment before letting out his short, barking laugh.

“Courf says he can see us from his café window.” He told Enjolras, eyelashes dark against his cheeks as he still regarded the phone in his hand, his smile creasing the corners of his eyes. “And that we’re putting valuable customers off their beverages.” 

“Oh.” Enjolras smiled slightly, not looking in the direction of the café where Courfeyrac worked, still taking in Grantaire’s face as the wind caught at his own hair, pale waving strands scattering across his eyelashes. 

“Do you fancy a walk?” Grantaire asked, meeting his gaze again with that lopsided grin, eyes flickering as he took in his whole expression, the way he did when he mind was picking out shades and colours Enjolras always missed, a brightness to his eyes that couldn’t be veiled by the tangled strands of his curling hair, “I’ve been slumped in front of canvases all day, I could do with some polluted, cold air.” 

Enjolras nodded, adding a quiet yes to the somewhat mockingly phrased question that twisted Grantaire’s smile. Grantaire did that often, Enjolras had been noticing, sentences and questions phrased to take weight off the listener, as if he were somehow hesitant, half-expecting refusal. Self-disparaging laughs that Enjolras still didn’t quite know how to make disappear, because he still couldn’t quite voice just how much he wished they weren’t there.

Grantaire was studying him thoughtfully, head slightly tilted, the left side his jaw brushing the collar of his coat as a lazy smile took over his face, 

“Although, you do look tired, soothing Hypnos.” He said, “We can head to yours if you like?” 

Enjolras smiled at him, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly, half in exasperation, but mostly through fondness, one that had wormed its way into his heart far too long ago for him to recall its start.

“I’m fine.” Enjolras told him, “I’d like to walk somewhere.”

Grantaire’s hands were still tangled in Enjolras’s, but he lifted them, freeing them to play with the collar of Enjolras’s coat for a split second. 

“Ok.” He grinned, a flash of teeth accompanying his words.

Enjolras had felt he’d loved Paris, but never so much when Grantaire walked by his side through its streets, his hand clasped in his. He’d learnt the contours of those hands, those long fingers and chewed nails, learnt every dip of flesh and bone and vein. Witty and clever Grantaire, whose words were so often acidic. Words that would sink into Enjolras’s skin, burning in a way that no one else’s did. But nowadays some arguments would slow and stop as tiredness dropped their eyelids and intertwined their limbs and he’d wake to gentle fingers skimming where his curls met his neck. 

And they’d walk through Paris, passing by the Eiffel Tower as dusk stained their surroundings purple and blue, streetlights illuminating the drizzle that steeped from the darkening sky. They’d take the metro to the other side of the inner city just because their year long passes meant that they could.

And sometimes words would turn heated, and Enjolras would lose his temper, and Grantaire would turn ceaselessly provocative and sarcastic. And sometimes frustration would light red hot along Enjolras’s veins, because he so desperately wanted to help Grantaire, wanted to stopper those tired glances, and it was so difficult. But easiness would lace it too, lace Grantaire’s loud laugh and warm affection that linked hands and endless days spent together. It would lace the afternoons spent lazing with their friends, and the nights where Enjolras would lie awake with Grantaire beside him, and he’d run an index finger along the sweeping line of Grantaire’s arm, and he didn’t have to think to know hat he’d never been so happy in his life.

Now the sun had dipped out from the grey cloud, igniting the wet pavements white and pale yellow, and the dying autumn trees were suddenly aflame, reminding Enjolras of a day when Paris was clothed in sunshine, back in the summer weeks when it had just been Grantaire and him wondering the city. 

Grantaire still looked at him as if he were the sun currently interwoven in Enjolras’s vision, causing his eyes to squint as they headed along the Boulevard Saint-Michel. He’d see the way he looked at him, mornings when his face was half concealed by bedding, eyes calm and mouth turned down, and it would make his heart falter, a fear seeping into his veins that, even after all this time, he’d disappoint. And he’d find that Grantaire shared those feelings and he’d feel torn between laughter and fury that their hearts and heads could seem so disarrayed.

The boulevard continued, and they wove between awnings, payphones, bollards and chained bicycles, uphill through the city, pausing on the way as Grantaire dragged him into a small café, letting the warm air invigorate Enjolras’s skin as he bought them each a coffee laced with something that smelt like gingerbread. 

They finally slowed where the Boulevard Saint-Michel ran into the Place Edmund Rostand, a line of café’s to their right following the curve of the roundabout centred by a fountain, whose surrounding flowers would bloom once again when spring once more edged back into the city, bringing blossom and rainy days and afternoons in the Luxembourg Gardens. Grantaire led him forwards, past the café’s lined with a few figures reclining on wicker chairs, across the small zebra crossing to the expanse of pavement bordered by high iron fencing. The rustling trees beyond the fence, nestled in the Luxembourg Gardens, appeared ash purple and brown, whispering of a dying summer. 

Grantaire leant against the low stone wall that merged into the fencing, just before a cluster of mopeds. Fingers tapping against his paper coffee cup, he let out a low breath that lit a hum in his throat and cast Enjolras’s eyes to his lips.

“How was your day?” Enjolras finally asked him after a moment of them both resting there, remembering the coffee in his hand and turning back to it, head dipping away from Grantaire’s face. 

He sensed rather than saw Grantaire’s dismissive shrug,

“Boring as fuck.” He grinned, leaning back slowly as he took in the tall bare trees on the opposite side of the road, the seven storey buildings behind them white in the last bursts of afternoon sunshine. “I’m sure I didn’t inspire quite as many people as you. How’s your arm?”

“It’s fine.” Enjolras responded, and the words were a little heated, not due to Grantaire. But because the bruise on his arm that he’d picked up from a lamppost he’d been slammed into last week was not just a reminder of the demonstrations from the students of Paris that had swept through the city, or the jumpiness of police where students came in, that had set fiery satisfaction along his veins, because their opinions were becoming noticed. But it was also a reminder of why it had happened in the first place. A reminder of deportations, and dismantled camps, and youths denied an education by a supposedly leftist government. 

And next to him Grantaire sat looking tired, a small smile curling his lips, still believing that nothing they could do would change anything. 

“I believe in you.” He’d said once when frustration had brought that topic up, and that look had claimed his eyes, when unusual seriousness would settle his features, “In an unwavering and drowning way highly reminiscent of the sea.” Then that oddly fearful look vanished behind eyes narrowing in a mocking grin, “Perhaps you’re Neptune, or Nerites, after all this time.” 

“Mm.” Grantaire was musing now, but he didn’t comment further, a hand instead snaking into the pocket of his coat and dragging out a packet of cigarettes. Enjolras watched him light one, oddly fascinated by the practiced movement of his fingers, the way he dipped his head, eyelids flickering as he looked down, the way his fingers rose to take it from his mouth once lit, those thin lips that were so quickly twisted to smiles. 

“Are you busy tonight?” Enjolras asked him, still absorbed in Grantaire’s movements, ignoring exhaled smoke furl like cold breaths about their heads.

“Well, I have the feeling you are,” Grantaire responded in that casually provocative way of his, smirk turning gentle when he met his eye, “Saving the world?”

Enjolras huffed at his words, rolling his eyes, but he was fairly sure Grantaire has seen the way his lips were curling as he looked back at him,

“You could save the world with me.” He retorted, sending Grantaire a sarcastic look. Grantaire half moved to nudge his arm and their coats came to rest against one another’s, arms meeting.

“Hm, I can’t tonight.” Grantaire sighed, exhaling, “I’m helping Jehan put green streaks in his hair.”

“Are you serious?”

“Always.” His grin was wolf-like. “But I could drop by later?”

“Please do.” Enjolras told him, meeting his eye a moment before casting his gaze to the road ahead of them, watching the pedestrians winding their way home, again unaware of the stern cast of his face, or the intensity of his tone, and he missed the way Grantaire looked at him, that unique tenderness lacing his gaze that he reserved for him alone. But he knew that gaze, had kept it pictured in his mind when his heart ached and the strength that he kept so tightly strung about his person threatened to crumble. Grantaire was a strength. One that now felt inconceivable to stand without.

They stayed there a while, talking of small things, Grantaire quoting as thoughts appeared erratically to his quick mind, words rolling from his lips in that eloquent way that Enjolras sometimes felt he could listen too endlessly. Enjolras interjected occasionally, disagreed, but mostly he listened, listened to Grantaire’s words, listened to an amusing story from that morning with Joly, brought flashing to Grantaire’s mind by a figure walking past who shared his tousled hair. And the sun flared occasionally, lighting the dark roads and cold, autumnal features of the city, and in amongst it all Enjolras leant close to Grantaire, cigarette smoke clouding his head, and he told him that he loved him, words voiced before, but words that would never be false and never casually spoken.

Paris that day was washed in grey and orange and yellow, and Grantaire heard Enjolras’s words, and took his hand with a smile.


	2. December 5th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Paris is strung with cold winter and Christmas lights, and Bahorel's new friend possesses quite a few branches.

When daylight saving began to flood Paris in darkness by late afternoon, the cheap decorations in cafés and shop windows had sprung up as if on instinct; plastic holly and ivy clustered round windows steamed by the cold air. Over the weeks, new lights would make the city glow when the pale winter sun sunk below the old buildings, lights along the Champs-Elysées streaming from the trees to mix with the car headlights that somehow seemed to take on a new lustre in spite of a dreary winter. Lights became strung about the boulevards, tangled in the trees along the Seine and by Shakespeare and Company. The Galeries Lafayette had its usual rivulets of lights flooding the front of the building, and from it the whole Boulevard Hausmann seemed to glow far brighter than the cold winter sun could ever manage. The Christmas tree standing in the Place Jean Paul II shone blue, as the pale, warm lights illuminated Notre Dame behind it. 

“We can applaud them for remembering it this year.” Grantaire had said when they’d first walked past it, on their way to the ice rink in front of the Hotel de Ville, that made the whole square appear as if it had frozen. The greys, ochres and whites of the tall, pale buildings that made up the narrow streets were now lined with the greens and reds of bows clustered around balconies and window ledges, glimpses of trees glittering from windows. 

The cheap, thin string of multi-coloured lighting that Bahorel had smuggled out the staffroom of the pool where he was a lifeguard, far up on line twelve of the metro, didn’t glow anywhere near as bright as the other lights in Paris. But Grantaire preferred them that way, as they wound their way over the cabinets on the far wall of the flat Combeferre, Feuilly and Bahorel all shared, muted reds, greens and pinks faintly shining, reflected in the single paned window looking out over the street below, the Christmas tree glistening in the white paned window of the apartment just opposite. 

The Christmas music Courfeyrac had crammed his iPod full with the moment November had been halfway over was blaring tinny from the speakers on the far side of the sitting room. It had been playing for the past hour, and Grantaire was on the verge of never wanting to hear ‘Fairytale of New York’ again in his life. But he wasn’t quite there yet, so he took another sip of the flask filled with mulled wine he and Eponine had been sharing, their limbs interlocked on the battered sofa. 

It was a cold, clear day in early December. The sun had been tangled in his eyes all day, low in the sky as it somehow found its way round the tall buildings of the city and blinding those walking the streets. The apartment was warm from the sunlight that lay chequered across the floor, and Grantaire’s legs were a little stiff from contentedly not moving for a while.

Cosette, Musichetta and Marius were kneeling in the centre of the room with Gavroche, surrounded by cardboard boxes filled with tinsel and baubles wrapped poorly in newspaper from last year. Musichetta was still wearing the reindeer headband she’d arrived in a few hours ago, clutching three toffee nut lattes that Grantaire had been too scared to protest about when she’d given them to their hosts. 

The apartment was somewhat quiet with the absence of the rest of them. They’d headed down to the flower market round the corner an hour or so ago, where Christmas trees had been lined in the small square surrounded by tall apartments for the past week now. Grantaire would have accompanied them, but the blanket they’d borrowed from Combeferre’s room to throw over their legs had really been very warm and soft. 

Eponine jabbed his arm pointedly grabbing the flask of mulled wine, the blanket now pressed against her cheek as if she were inhaling its scent. Grantaire would have teased her about it, if it had not been for the fact that he was currently wearing Enjolras’s t-shirt underneath his jacket, soft grey fabric against his skin.

Eponine still had days where she looked far too exhausted, days when her eyes lingered too long on shop windows, or when a shadow of pain crossed her face when she studied Gavroche, and Grantaire didn’t think those days would ever leave her. But she’d been far closer to all of them of late, perhaps a little due to Combeferre.

“When it feels easier, it feels _easy_.” She had told Grantaire once, about a month ago when rain was making the November pavements glitter, “It never did before.”

Grantaire felt that perhaps he could understand that. Some days his hands might shake, and he’d think about how many cigarettes he’d smoked that morning and feel that cold swoop in his chest. He’d look too long in the mirror above the sink, let his thoughts claim him, those thoughts that always seemed to wait for him to be alone before they’d seep through the wall he’d thought he’d set them safely behind. He still woke with those thoughts, but now they didn’t always seem so haunting, not when he woke with Enjolras’s arm wrapped around him, his hair soft against his neck and his breathing gentle and slow. Some days, the strength he would feel would alarm him, a rush of surprise, one that he didn’t think his heart would ever have felt. Enjolras had always inspired some form of strength in him amongst everything else, one that he had found unrecognisable at first, but this was a different strength. A happiness that he was still scared to accept. 

“Does anyone fancy one of gingerbread men Cosette made?” Marius asked, his husky voice breaking into Grantaire’s sudden reverie, “They’re incredible.”

“I do!” Gavroche exclaimed, leaping to his feet to grab to proffered tin, with a flurry of somewhat sarcastically voiced ‘much obliged monsieur’s.

Cosette gave a rather far-from-modest shrug at Marius’s words, grinning as she affectionately leant over to nudge her boyfriend’s shoulder with hers.

“ _I_ am rather incredible.” She commented.

“Please don’t mention them in front of Feuilly.” Eponine sighed as she leant forward to take the tin Gavroche was now holding out to her, while Grantaire simply and unhelpfully held out his hand. “There’s a terrible joke there about fancying ginger men and he will take it.”

Feuilly’s red hair appeared on Grantaire’s phone a moment later, the incoming call making the phone buzz from its perch on his knee.

“M’wat, babe?” He said by way of answer, a gingerbread man’s leg obstructing the larger part of his ability to speak.

“Forgot the keys.” Feuilly’s voice said, not commenting on the greeting, “Be a dear and buzz us in.”

“Your front door has been broken since the day we met you.” Grantaire commented, observing the stretch of distance between himself and the door.

“You’re right, I’m obviously just phoning for the beautiful sound of your voice. Just how much of Cosette’s cooking is in your mouth right now?”

“Hmm-”

“You know, you should have said you were into ginger men-”

Grantaire hung up the phone with a loud, drawn out, “No,” abysmally slow in trying to deny Feuilly that joke. He decided he had earned the several metres walk to the buzzer by the door.

He heard their friends before he saw them, returned to his corner of the sofa. Their arrival back at the flat was accompanied by loud voices and the sounds of eight pairs of feet marching up the stairs. Stairs where Grantaire had once sat, inhaling cold air and cologne, and Enjolras’s fingers had rested just above his bruised hands, and he’d wondered how he could feel so alive in such a dark, dank stairwell. He didn’t think he’d ever feel anything but utterly alive next to Enjolras, whether it pain or bewilderment that thrived by result, or a happiness that he’d been working to let in unquestioned nowadays. The old confusion had diminished itself, the tangled, painful confusion of wanting someone so desperately, mixed with the self-hatred of even considering it. 

Cosette leapt to her feet to throw the door open before a flurry of loud knocking could ensue. Grantaire assumed his friends were at the threshold, though most of his vision was dominated by the netted Christmas tree wedged in the door. 

“Merry Christmas, children!” Courfeyrac shouted instantly, in the level of voice that had had their neighbours complaining about last week. 

“We got the best tree!” Joly exclaimed, and his face appeared a moment later from around the edge of encased branches, “It’s a little smaller than we wanted, but well, they all were.” 

“Ah the stunted Christmas trees of Paris.” Grantaire remarked, “How the city fumes have corrupted their potential.”

A loud sigh came from what he assumed was Enjolras’s part of the Christmas tree, and he smirked.

“We cleared a space for it.” Cosette told them cheerfully, stepping back as Feuilly began to lift a leg around the tree in an effort to get into the apartment, “The decorations are laid out to use too. Be an angel and put this wreath on the door, Enjolras.”

“‘I’ll wreath my sword in myrtle bough,’” Grantaire recited, taking in the image of Enjolras with the garland pressed into his hand.

“At least someone’s been doing something.” Bahorel commented, ignoring Grantaire’s input, his head and shoulders just visible as he shot a pointed look towards Eponine and Grantaire’s area of the room. He was met with a cheerfully raised flask.

“I’ll put the kettle on.” Combeferre said, clambering past the tree with difficulty, its branches rustling in protest. He paused on his way past the sofa to press a kiss to Eponine’s cheek, bringing with him the scent of cold, smoky outdoors.

Courfeyrac had managed to disentangle himself from the tree, helped through the doorway by Joly’s offered hand, and Grantaire wondered how he had momentarily forgotten about the reindeer stitched on the front of his jumper, its fluffy red nose protruding slightly.

“Tis the season to be _jolllly_.” He sang in a ringing tone as an apparent form of gratitude, cupping his gloved hands to Joly’s surprised face.

“I don’t mean to be rude.” Bahorel said, still trapped in the hallway, “But the doorway is a bit of a shit place for a Christmas tree.”

Despite any stunted potential, the tree proved problematic in getting through the door, as Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Bahorel and Enjolras started to wrestle it past the doorframe. It ended up scratching some of the flaking plaster and littering needles across the floor.

“I hope our landlord is in a festive mood.” Feuilly mused once the tree was in the apartment, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Where are we putting this infernal thing then?”

“Don’t talk so derogatively about our striking extract of festive flora.” Jehan scolded, disentangling himself from a knitted scarf of rather alarmingly clashing colours. “It’s beautiful.” 

“I don’t feel you three are worthy of it.” Courfeyrac said, sweeping across the room to put his arms around Jehan’s waist, lifting him off his feet despite his squawk of protest, “Just because you have the biggest living room.”

“Too fucking late.” Feuilly cut in cheerfully, now lolling against the sofa arm, fishing in his pocket for a lighter, a cigarette already in the corner of his mouth.

“Do _not_ light your cigarette that close to the tree!” Joly yelped, looking scandalized.

“Tea or coffee, anyone?” Combeferre’s calm tone floated in between their voices.

“Coffee, please.” Enjolras said, voice quiet and carrying from where he’d settled on the arm of the chair nearest the door. Grantaire looked at him, taking in the flush spread across his cheeks from the cold, and the way strands of fair hair lay clustered over his scarf. A newspaper was between his dark gloves, long fingers absently playing with the page corners. His gaze flicked to Grantaire, expression unreadable for a moment before a smile lifted his lips, and the warmth that lined his features made Grantaire’s heart stutter. A heart that so often stuttered hesitantly, and felt unrecognisable in its lightness. His hands felt that maybe they could still feel Enjolras’s skin beneath them from that morning, impervious to winter as any cold was lost to crumpled sheets, hot, flushed skin and low gasps. 

“Unless you’re looking for things for Father Christmas to fix, you are not reading that now.” Courfeyrac told Enjolras, Jehan still enfolded by an arm as he stepped forwards to tug the newspaper from Enjolras’s grip. “We’re trying to feel festive, not depressed and angry. I’ll burn it later, don’t worry.”

“No you won’t.” Combeferre notified him, because, as they knew from past experience, Courfeyrac definitely wasn’t joking. 

“At least you’re not short on anything for a Christmas list.” Grantaire mused, and Enjolras was still meeting his gaze. He tilted his head back slightly, not breaking the stare, unable to stop the corners of his mouth lifting. “Nor shall you ever be.”

“That’s why I love you, Marius.” Courfeyrac announced, ignoring the gloomy implication of Grantaire’s words, looking up from the newspaper with a toothy grin, “Your love affair with terrible lumpy jumpers are the best thing that’s happened to my book of gift ideas.”

“You have a book of gift ideas?” Eponine snorted.

“I’ve seen it.” Jehan proclaimed, tugging playfully on one of Courfeyrac’s curls, “You’re all getting nude pics on your Christmas cards.”

“Lucky us.” Combeferre put in dryly from over by the kettle. 

Bahorel coughed lightly before Courfeyrac could respond. 

“I hate to be a bore. But I’m currently hanging out with a dead tree.” 

It didn’t take much to navigate the tree towards its allocated corner of the room, even if it was only Enjolras, Feuilly and Bahorel involved in said piloting.

“A little to the left.” Grantaire shouted helpfully over the fresh stream of Christmas music, now from Bossuet’s rather forlorn and cracked iPod, “And bring it round just thirty degrees or so.”

“You lot could get up and help, you know.” Enjolras directed his glance to the figures on the sofa, not that there was much doubt for who he was addressing. 

“That doesn’t quite tie in with my concept of free will.” Grantaire grinned, stretching the arm not holding the flask languorously, “Besides, no one else is helping. Look, Combeferre’s just sitting over there reading.”

“He’s still recovering from his terrible, terrible ice skating mishap.” Eponine smirked, leaning over to poke Combeferre’s knee playfully.

“Ow.” Combeferre said, the pages of the book hiding his grin. 

“So I’m guessing none of you losers want to decorate it, then?” Feuilly remarked with a smirk, tossing some gold tinsel around his neck and sending them all an expectant look.

It transpired that they all really did, and Grantaire wasn’t entirely sure on the exact details of the next half hour; it was lost in a blur of competitive bauble placing, glittering tinsel, scattered newspaper and loud Christmas music. And Grantaire considered that if there was any system, it was a very inconspicuous one.

He sat back after a moment, a sprig of plastic holly owed to Musichetta now slotted in his hair, sinking back onto the sagging sofa with a soft exhalation of breath, drawing a knee to his chest.

He stayed there, content to watch these people, this group of people who were a family to him. People he loved more than anything, who he knew loved him back in spite of whatever dark shadows would plague his mind now and then. They were like a bright light, one that drew him in and kept him warm, in a different way to the blazing fire Enjolras seemed to emit. He studied them fondly, half unconsciously committing them to his mind to immortalize on cheap paper later. Jehan hanging up decorations he’d made himself, face serious as he took in his handiwork, and Grantaire could almost see the words he was trying to set flowing in his mind. Courfeyrac, loud and laughing and throwing glittering streamers over Combeferre’s hair. Combeferre blushing as Eponine laughed at him, smiling in that warm, quiet way of his. Eponine, who kept sending looks at Gavroche as she tucked her hair behind her ears, a small, hesitant smile setting her shoulders relaxed. Joly making Bossuet and Musichetta roar with laughter over a joke Grantaire hadn’t heard, Musichetta’s reindeer headband wavering dangerously from its new perch on his head. Bahorel laughing loudly with Gavroche , hauling him up in his arms so he could reach the higher spans of the tree, the unique maturity of the young boy side-lined for a moment as the glow of the Christmas lights lit his face. Feuilly cross-legged as he replaced some of the dead bulbs on the string of tree lights, talking animatedly with Cosette whilst she threaded baubles to lower branches. Marius standing slightly back from them all, expression faraway as a small smile lit his face.

And Enjolras. He was standing next to Combeferre, watching Gavroche rearranging some of the tinsel from his perch on Bahorel’s shoulders. He seemed to draw light even when he was observing, the warm glow from the lights that were working sending Grantaire reeling back to September, when the last throws of summer were falling on Enjolras’s hair and turning it to gold. He didn’t know if Enjolras thought of their summer, if he’d noticed the small details of life that Grantaire would pin so much thought and memory to. But he thought that sometimes he did, in the way that he’d wake with Enjolras looking at him, with fingers curled gently in his hair, a thumb lighting softly over strands of dark hair. His heart and mind may be set on things that Grantaire could only describe as greater, but nowadays perhaps Enjolras had room for more. The smaller things, the way he’d lean over to kiss Grantaire as they all sat in a warm, rich smelling café, so unexpected and so welcome. Or the way he’d reach for his hand, lacing their fingers together so tightly Grantaire felt like they were each some kind of lifeline. Or those nights that ranked as his favourite, when Enjolras wouldn’t open his laptop, but sit with his legs splayed on Grantaire’s lap, and they’d talked and argued and laughed as the stars moved over Paris. Nights when the seriousness that laced Enjolras’s personality would thin and he’d laugh and Grantaire would wonder if perhaps those nights were more dreaming than reality. 

Enjolras looked over at Grantaire, and smiled. 

And any deep set affection for Christmastime was a foreign sentiment for Grantaire, any love for the time of year made bitter by the cold, and the twisting unhappiness that settled about his heart, made worse by shining lights and smiling faces on the streets.

But this year settled something new about him. Something that was pictured in his mind as gold and red and glistening like the lights and decorations strung around Paris. And he found his heart felt light, despite the cold, that instead of freezing his fingers and setting his spirits low, made him hope for days when snow would layer the bridges and riverbanks, and the narrow window ledges, muting the city noise in that way that only snow could.

And for one of the first times in his life, it felt like Christmastime. 

Considering the amount of people, the tree didn’t take long to have as many decorations flung at it as possible. Its branches seemed to sag a little under the weight of tinsel and baubles and the streamers Courfeyrac was mostly responsible for. 

“It looks…lovely.” Combeferre had said after a brief pause when they’d all stood back to appraise it, and his face had assumed that tactfully blank expression, and Grantaire had wished he could shake the notion that he would rearrange it all the moment they’d all left.

The sun had been setting quickly, as it always did in winter, and outside the streetlights had flickered on, flashes of reds and yellows from the traffic at the end of the street whirring by occasionally, shining through undrawn curtains. They were all sat now, scattered on cushions and the mismatch of sofas and chairs in the small apartment that was clothed in darkness, dim but for the string of multi-coloured lighting, and the gently blinking lights wound round the needles of the tree. The music was still playing quietly in the background, now some music-box version of a Christmas tune Grantaire vaguely recognised, soft chimes gentle and quiet. It was tranquil, in spite of the number of them. The tree seemed oddly hypnotic, its tangy scent filling the room. Jehan was lying silently beneath the branches, on the laminate floor, looking up at the lights twisting throughout the tree, fingers absently playing with the fabric of the jumper Courfeyrac had bought him, cheap, ugly constructions bestowed as early presents to them all. And receiving any kind of present from his friends still sent a squirming pleasure and discomfort to his chest, that familiar sensation of undeserving. He had only temporarily parted with his jumper owing to ketchup stains.

The sofa next to Grantaire dipped, and he looked over to see Enjolras settling a few centimetres away. His arm brushed warm against his, and he brought with him the faint, minty scent of his shampoo. 

He didn’t say anything at first, just sat next to Grantaire, their arms touching, Grantaire half leaning into him, letting Enjolras’s slow, rhythmic breathing fill his ears. On his other side, Gavroche leapt to his feet, inquiring about the location of Cosette’s gingerbread men. He left the sketchpad Grantaire and he had been playing with, the pen still uncapped in Grantaire's hand.

“Give me your arm.” Grantaire grinned, holding out his free hand. Enjolras’s eyelashes fluttered as he looked down at Grantaire’s fingers, and after a moment he stretched out his right arm without question, his torso twisting with the movement. The verse he’d quoted earlier drifted to Grantaire’s mind again with Enjolras there, and unable to resist the flicker of irritation that always passed over Enjolras’s face when he quoted seemingly random things, he quietly sang,

“Harmodius, hail! You did not die, but stay in the islands of the blest, where swift-footed Achilles lives.’”

“What?” Enjolras questioned, sounding cautious.

“Drinking songs, Enjolras.” He grinned, leaning forwards to better see what he was drawing, “But considering the topic, perhaps you and I can unite our interests after all.”

“I’d say we do that more often than not.” Enjolras said quietly, and Grantaire looked up to be pinned with a subtly pointed look with a shade of rather amusing triumph in Enjolras's gaze, and Grantaire didn’t think his heart ever _wouldn’t_ stutter at that. The pen slipped slightly in his grasp.

“I’ve been wondering.” Enjolras finally said after a moment of silence, eyes flicking between Grantaire’s face and the pen Grantaire was still moving over his skin, “I should have asked sooner. But, where are you Christmas Day?”

The pen slowed its movements for a brief instant, and a moment later Grantaire flicked a quick look to Enjolras’s face. He was watching him, face stern as ever.

“Paris.” He eventually said, then let a grin twist his lips, “Or wherever there’s alcohol.” 

“Me too.” Enjolras’s tone sounded close to relief, and Grantaire poured his focus into the pattern he was tracing onto Enjolras’s skin, trying to calm his heart. “In Paris, I mean.” He paused for a moment, as if the next bit was obvious, and Grantaire’s heart felt it was, but his mind stuttered that warning it so often did.

“Any plans?” He asked Enjolras, aiming for a casual tone as he pressed the lid back on the pen with a soft click, tilting his head to observe the mistletoe he’d doodled with a smug smile.

“ _Grantaire_.” Enjolras’s tone came frustrated, and for some reason that lifted Grantaire’s heart more than anything.

“Hmm?” He smirked, lifting Enjolras’s ink stained arm above his head and pressing a swift kiss to his lips. Enjolras made every pretence of impatience, but a blush had settled along his skin.

“Will you spend Christmas Day with me?” He asked steadily, voice modulated and determined as ever, if perhaps a little louder than necessary. From the floor next to them, Bossuet looked over and grinned.

Grantaire paused, trying to control the smile that was threatening to make his face hurt. He looked up again, feeling wonderfully held by Enjolras’s gaze.

“You don’t have to spend it with me.” He said, and the words were something like a secret fear, “Just because we’re the only two here.” And Enjolras rolled his eyes. He cheeks were still a little pink.

“I _want_ to spend it with you.” He said, eyebrows lowered, and that look, intensity somehow not stoppered by blushing cheeks, had Grantaire convinced, a new kind of convincement from Enjolras that he was starting to let his mind accept without too much question. It took away his power to reply in anything more than a nod, that Enjolras might have missed if not for his watching Grantaire closely. But he saw it, and his hand found Grantaire’s, long fingers tangling about his, and Grantaire didn’t think he’d ever get used to the way that felt, still struggled to believe it sometimes. 

The rest of their evening flowed lazily until late, when the first of them began to clamber to their feet with the aim of heading to their own apartments, Courfeyrac half reminding them of their promises to head out the following night. 

“Bring tinsel.” He said ominously. 

Grantaire almost felt sad leaving that apartment when they did, the soft, glowing lights and the warm room being traded for the dank stairwell outside that smelt as stale and damp as ever. But Enjolras’s hand was still in his, unlike the last time they’d sat here so many months ago. Enjolras’s hand was in his, his grip warm and firm and their unspoken pattern of heading back to one or the other’s apartment playing out again. And Grantaire turned his head as Combeferre bade them goodnight, an arm around Eponine’s shoulders. She sent Grantaire a wink. And before Combeferre shut the door, Grantaire committed that evening to his memory, with the small Christmas tree gleaming, its decorations glittering, and the sound of his friends’ laughter echoing on the stairwell. 

And the winter might give colds that made throats sore and limbs ache, and the city that waited outside for them breathed a chill, smoky, unforgiving air, but Grantaire’s heart had never felt lighter. 

And he felt that perhaps it was glowing a little, like the lights that were laced round Paris, ready for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CAN YOU TELL I'M EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS NOWW
> 
> This is a super duper early Christmas present for [twahtohnedskee ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twahtohnedskee/pseuds/twahtohnedskee)who is so lovely i can't I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT AHHHHH
> 
> also thank you for the kudos and comments you're all too nice 
> 
> MERRY EARLY CHRISTMAS!!!


	3. January 29th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Enjolras is perpetually confused, and nobody is particularly surprised. And Paris will continue to bloom even after the rains have been.

The new year had washed in on rolling dark clouds that brought with it rain that flowed down windowpanes, and winds that stirred rubbish from bins and hurtled them down streets. It seemed to get to his very bones, when the weather was like that, dark clouds constant over Paris, and it seemed the city would forever be encased in its miserable cloud of dreariness and ice and rain that seemed to take the iron grey of the Eiffel Tower and spill it like watercolours into every aspect of the city.

Enjolras partly blamed the weather for his mood.

But mostly, mostly he blamed himself.

It was a knowledge that had sat with him the past few days, days that could hardly be so named when the sky was black with rain and he was cold and wet and aching from walks to lectures, no matter how fast he ran down the streets to stumble down the tiled steps to the metro. Steps now slippery and dripping with water stained by a thousand trudging feet. But he knew that the sun could be glaring down on Paris, making the pale buildings gleam and the Pantheon’s roof shine if not for the scaffolding now around it, and this heaviness would still be cast about his shoulders. 

“So let me get this straight.” Courfeyrac said, one Tuesday when yet again the winds were hurtling down the boulevard outside, setting Enjolras’s teeth on edge, “You asked Grantaire to move in with you, and, inexplicably I might add, you’ve fallen out?”

He was sprawled next to Combeferre on the bed pushed against Enjolras’s bedroom wall, a mug of steaming tea balancing in one hand as he rocked a leg back and forth. Enjolras wished he’d sit up before the inevitable happened and tea got spilt over his   
duvet. 

“Yes.” He replied shortly, leaning forwards from his perch on the bedside table to shift the papers next to Courfeyrac and save them from crumpling. He supposed it was fair to assume that any of their previous workings on how best to reclaim the activist side of the first year students after a long Christmas break was now at a close. Combeferre had set the laptop down. 

“Did you ask him in a….” Combeferre trailed off in apparent search for the right word, and Enjolras got the sense that he was trying to be diplomatic, “Sudden and waspish, sort of way?”

Courfeyrac choked slightly on his tea.

“We haven’t fallen out,” Enjolras corrected himself, deciding it was best to ignore Combeferre’s implication, and ignore with it the small plunge that tugged somewhere near his abdomen and made him feel slightly nauseous. “Not really. He’s just been…odd,   
since I said it.”

Courfeyrac’s phone vibrated on his chest and he picked it up, raising it upwards as he leant back, eye flicking from Enjolras to the screen. Enjolras had slowly learnt that the accompanying twist to his smile meant that the text was from Jehan. Despite of, or perhaps due to the rain, Courfeyrac had said he was currently roaming the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Enjolras had been there a few times, had seen why someone like Jehan liked it so much as he’d wandered past macabre headstones and the faded marks of lipstick kisses on Oscar Wilde’s tomb. Perhaps Jehan would go to the Communard’s Wall, tucked away half-forgotten amongst waving trees in the south west corner of the cemetery; where one night over a hundred years ago, among the deaths of thousands, one hundred and forty-seven men were shot and thrown down like dogs in trenches. They had left broken barricades littering the torn up streets and the Tuileries Palace a smoking husk. And they’d left crushed dreams that risen with the smoke and never faded. 

High rise buildings rose behind that wall now, the air rushing with the drone of traffic, the sound of a never still city that rushed on past, hardly noticing of those who had died for it in the wish to grant it liberty.

Grantaire had sat there with him once over summer, eyes squinting in the sunlight and a cigarette between his lips, their legs pressed together as they’d both sat in silence. And no mocking comments had passed his lips. As they’d made to go he’d turned to Enjolras and given him a small smile laced with something like sadness. And his mouth had never been far from his on a walk home littered with tourists and lazy bursts of warm, summer sunshine.

Now, he could hear the wind howling in the stairwell, and a door slammed downstairs.

“Talk to Grantaire.” Combeferre was saying in that calm, measured voice of his that was somehow soothing no matter how riled and agitated Enjolras felt, as if he were somehow attuned to Combeferre, their wavelengths something akin to identical. “Find out exactly what he is feeling, rather than assuming you know.” 

“I can’t believe you just haven’t talked about it.” Courfeyrac snickered, who had dropped his phone back on his chest, his response to Jehan finished, and was obviously ready to re-enter their present conversation.

“He’s been avoiding me.” Enjolras responded, and even to his ears the words sounded petulant and childish. His face felt warm. “It was only last week.”

Courfeyrac gave a deep, heavy sigh of a man who is heavily put upon. 

“Well, Feuilly asked if we wanted to meet him at the café later after his shift.” Combeferre suggested, a hand absently playing with the vibrant fabric of his right sock. “Place Saint-Michel. You can talk to Grantaire then.”

“Fabulous.” Courfeyrac declared loudly, getting to his feet and not quite cutting through the sudden mild shame that had swept over Enjolras that he couldn’t deal with the problems he had with Grantaire by himself. “And I’m going to leave before you see what I did.”

“What?”

“Nothing, dear. Talk to Grantaire, ok?”

And Enjolras was so sufficiently preoccupied with that concept, that he didn’t notice the large tea stain Courfeyrac had left on his duvet until later that evening.

* * *

The wicker and steel chairs that were so often laid out in front of the many cafes of the Place Saint-Michel had been stacked haphazardly under dripping awnings for the past few weeks. The trees along the fountain were bare, branches gnarled and waving to a sky that somehow seemed larger when all the surrounding buildings were shining with rain.

The café itself was a warm and welcome shelter, windows steamed from a warmth generated from the damp cluster of people and hot coffee, the same factors that determined the oddly pleasant smell of the place. 

It was a difficult feat to be the last to arrive when there were so many of them, and Enjolras was relatively on time as he entered that café, trailing wet footprints with shoes that made the panelled floor squeak, his coat glistening from the rain and his cheeks flushed from the cold.

And he felt his heart flip slightly as he saw that Grantaire was there already, crammed on the far side of a faded settee next to Jehan and Courfeyrac, his dark hair unmistakeable even from the other side of the room. 

And during their greetings that always seemed so extravagant when they seemed to see one another too often to be healthy, Enjolras settled near him, on one of the wicker seats, separated by a table filled with propped up menus they’d memorised months ago. And he took him in as if he’d never seen him before. Grantaire, all stick limbs and wild hair and hooded eyes and thin twisting lips. The hair that curled over the front of his forehead was still dripping, had evidently gone unprotected by the hoodie now bundled into his lap, the long sleeves of his top stretched from the damp.

“This,” Announced Bahorel loudly, who had just reached their claimed corner of the café and proceeded to flop down on top of Grantaire, who unleashed a list of cheerful cursing in protest. “Is shit. I’m getting trench foot.” 

“Which is not actually as ludicrous as you might like it to be.” Joly informed him, not looking up from his phone.

“Hush, medical student. I’m trying to be _melancholy._ ”

“That’s achieved with ease.” Grantaire commented, “When no window lets you see outside for being coated in rain, and you wake up when the wind relents because you’ve grown too used to its racket.” He might have thrown a smile out with the words, but the lack of humour in his eyes grated raw on Enjolras’s mind and he had another reason to despise the weather that was howling outside.

Jehan had seemed to have sensed Grantaire’s mood too.

“March will be here soon,” He told him, leaning over to fondly sweep at the wet curls that clustered over his brows. Jehan’s own hair was brushing his jawline nowadays, the green streaks that had stayed throughout autumn now faded and grown out. Which, Enjolras thought, was probably a good thing. “And instead of storms and cold drizzle, we’ll get sunshine and the trees will bloom again.”

“And Joly can show off his magnificent aversion to pollen on a trip to the countryside again.” Feuilly put in, arriving with a tray of precariously loaded drinks.

“Magnificent is one way of describing it.” Joly grinned, accepting the mint tea being handed his way. And Enjolras was left with that familiar memory of a day when the sun had risen high above the buildings of Paris in a clear, blue sky, and on Courfeyrac’s incontestable command, they’d all piled into Combeferre and Enjolras’s cars, and driven so far the city had left them and the greenery and wide skies Enjolras sometimes forgot existed had claimed the landscape.

It had been one of those odd days, one Enjolras thought distantly of now and then, when the skies of winter had been rainy in the city, and he’d found himself missing the sun. He’d remember the loud laughter of his friends, spread uncaringly out on grass that was still slightly wet as the sun had determinedly shone above them. He’d remember the brightly striped blazer Courfeyrac had been wearing, and the red, heavy boots Jehan had been so proud of, as he’d lain back and been uncaring about the mud that had stuck to his clothes.

Enjolras couldn’t remember what Grantaire had been wearing that day. He’d taken no notice of his movements as the sun had gleamed down on their heads. But then again, perhaps he had; that unconscious knowledge of Grantaire’s eyes on him accompanied with the memory of the day. And Grantaire was there, enfolded with the plough lines that had been on a distant hill, glinting with water, brilliant in the low sunshine. Like he was in Paris too, Paris which had washed itself in shades of him, as easily as his slender fingers ran watercolours over thick, stiff paper. It had draped his image over the high buildings, over the art department on the busy street Enjolras had hardly spared a thought this time last year. The touch of Grantaire’s hands stirred his thoughts along with the Eiffel Tower, his lips on the Pont Royal.

And he got the distinct warm and sudden feeling that, if he looked up now, those grey blue eyes would be on him still.

He raised his head, and Grantaire’s lips quirked in response. 

Bossuet arrived a moment later with Eponine and Musichetta in tow, one hand clasping an umbrella, or rather, the series of metal spokes that served as the only evidence that it had actually once had been an umbrella.

“You should have seen it.” Eponine grinned, flopping down on the nearest sofa arm, and leaning forwards with the apparent aim of borrowing a sip of Combeferre’s mocha. “I think I pulled a muscle from laughing.”

“And I think I pulled a muscle from trying to hold on to the stupid thing.” Bossuet noted cheerfully, giving Joly a quick kiss in greeting as Musichetta went to drag across a few extra chairs. “Is Marius here yet? I need to return his jumper from last week.” 

“Marius is out with Cosette.” Courfeyrac declared, catching the napkin Eponine had just chucked at his head for some comment Enjolras had missed. “ _Making_ out with Cosette.”   
Grantaire had slid out of his spot on the settee, pulling absently at the hem of his shirt as he headed towards the counter and Enjolras’s legs took on a rush of heat with the urge to go after him. But then Jehan made to follow him, light steps skipping quick   
across the floor and all Enjolras could do was sit there stupidly, eyes clasped on Grantaire, the slouching stance of his shoulders, his fingers tangled in his hair as he exchanged a laughing comment with the barrister, his customary hoarse laugh that made his eyes crease.

Cosette and Marius arrived whilst Enjolras was watching Grantaire, faces pink from the cold wind. Marius’s hair was plastered to his temples, the sleeves of his grey athletics’ union sweater dark from rain. 

“Don’t tell me they made you go running _outside_?” Courfeyrac asked in a half shrill, half defensive voice that made a few nearby customers glance over.

“What? No.” Marius replied a little absently, busy in the process of digging small amounts of change from his pockets and pooling them into the palm of his hand.

“But we did have to walk between metro stops.” Cosette pointed out, “Which was not enjoyable.” She gave Marius a quick kiss on the cheek and moved off towards where Grantaire and Jehan were still stood, ignoring the money in Marius’s hand. Enjolras watched her slip her arms around Grantaire, and proceed to point out the various cakes, and it was like some light was ebbing from Grantaire, fixed somewhere above his head, or lacing his features perhaps, because he just couldn’t look away.

“I should join a society.” Bahorel was saying, “I’ve been considering getting a habit.”

“I think they’ve probably forgotten you are enrolled in university considering your attendance record.” Combeferre stated lightly. 

“Feuilly, can you fix my phone?” Courfeyrac interrupted, “It won’t let me load my all-important, revolutionary emails.” 

“No.” Feuilly said in the deadpan voice that Enjolras knew well enough to know that he was reaching for Courfeyrac’s phone already, but he was watching Grantaire, “You can upturn upon itself the paradigm of technological reliance which we youth of this century supposedly cling to.” 

“God, please fix it.” Musichetta put in, “One of the first impressions of you was those Instagram photos you uploaded in mourning of your lost iPhone, and no one needs a repeat of that.”

“I am still not certain you can pull off excessively smudged eyeliner.” Combeferre agreed.

“It was a _melancholy and artistic mode of release and farewell_. Jehan said so.” 

Enjolras half listened to their conversations, his empty coffee mug nestled between his palms, conscious of the way it had lost all traces of the warmth he had once gleamed from its contents. 

Grantaire came over and sat down in his reclaimed seat in the hour that they were all there for, good-humoured smiles masking what Enjolras felt certain were tired eyes, with the rain insistently running down the windows, not to be defied by the warmth of the café’s interior. 

When finally they were called from the interludes that broke up busy days spent in the city, they began to drift over time towards the door, Joly returning to the hospital, Combeferre to the library, Eponine’s arm looped through his.

Grantaire stayed on that stretch of sofa, one foot resting casually on his opposite knee, playing with the coffee cup in his hand, face unreadable. The curls about his neck had grown more pronounced as they had dried. The shadows under his eyes were the grey of the Seine that flowed through that old city. 

His dark eyelashes flicked up when Enjolras found himself stood before him, that grey blue of his eyes fixed on him with some veiled sentiment that Enjolras still could not instantly riddle out. Grantaire would always remain an intoxicating mystery, and he knew that. Bursts of light and understanding would filter through and warm his skin, but mostly, the sky remained grey and unyielding in its workings. 

“Where are you going now?” Enjolras asked him, almost abruptly, the only words he said when there were so many other words he’d rather have voiced.

Grantaire appraised him, and his thin lips were unsmiling, and the flicks at the ends of his hair curled at the base of his neck.

“Let’s head back to mine.” He said quietly. 

Paris had not relented its downfall of rain when they emerged onto the Place St Michel. The rush of falling rain had become yet another sound in an ever moving city these past few weeks and Enjolras felt it like it was forever on his skin, an itch he couldn’t scratch, a sound that drummed relentlessly against his mind.

He walked with Grantaire silent at his side and thoughts of days when spring would come once more. When the Luxembourg Gardens would glitter wet from dew in the late mornings. Days when the sun would cast long shadows that belonged to summer as it slowly dipped towards the city skyline, and Jehan would voice that indescribable sadness that always accompanied him when a warmly lit day ended.

Grantaire said nothing the whole way back to his apartment, where they both unexplainably paused for a moment, drenched in that dank hallway just after the main doors that always smelled of mould and plaster. They stood there, Grantaire’s eyes pinning his, and after a moment Grantaire moved forwards and kissed him, a kiss that was determined and short before he pulled away and moved towards the stairs. And Enjolras paused at that, looking after him, so utterly confused, half irritated, and so utterly understanding of what it was to need someone.

Grantaire’s flat was the same as ever, a slightly damp, cluttered space hidden from the bustle of Paris by cheap fabric curtains that never quite managed to block the glaring light of the streetlamp outside when darkness fell.

“Sit wherever.” Grantaire said gently, heading towards the low mattress and flopping down onto it, reaching for the pile of nearby newspapers that would be spread across the floor on the days he painted. Enjolras had watched him do so a few times from that bed, had listened to Grantaire’s idle talk, his mocking and ranting, and observed the way his throat worked and his eyes glittered, and had felt that perhaps he could lie there and watch him forever. 

He found himself rather ignoring of Grantaire’s suggestion to sit, halting randomly in the cramped space of that apartment as he watched Grantaire remove his soaked boots and stuff them with newspaper in an effort to dry them out, the rasping of the ink stained paper filling the room. He watched his black curls drip. Neither of them said anything. 

The boots were placed carelessly by the end of the mattress, and Grantaire looked up, shoulders still hunched and his posture tense. They stared at one another, and Enjolras was suddenly overtly aware of the water leaking down the collar of his own t-shirt, dripping from the strands of his hair. 

It was an unsteady silence that had crept between them, and Enjolras’s mind had been filled for some time with unease, which now blossomed with Grantaire’s eyes on his, those disarming eyes that held no usual trace of humour, forced or otherwise. 

Talk to Grantaire, Courfeyrac had said, but that was impossible, impossible when he couldn’t locate the words.

“Are you angry with me?” Grantaire asked finally, in a casual tone that didn’t match his stance, a hand moving to cup his chin, head tilting as he continued to hold Enjolras’s gaze, to dizzy his thoughts in that way that only Grantaire could manage.

“No.” He answered immediately, and the word came out terse, his brows lowering, “Why would I be?”

Grantaire didn’t respond, just watched him from that slightly crooked angle as a water droplet stroked its way down his cheekbone.

“You’re soaking.” He said after a moment, and this time his voice was gentle, gentle like the way it was in mornings when Enjolras woke next to him, or gentle when he had stood beside him in the Louvre last summer, and told him amidst all the compliments that always came extravagant as if mocking, that Enjolras was far more beautiful than any sculpture there. 

“Yes.”

“Borrow a jumper or something. If you’re giving an all rousing speech to some hung-over first years and you have a blocked nose there will be just too much humour there for anyone to handle.” 

Grantaire moved before Enjolras could, heading towards the cheap set of drawers Feuilly had put up for him just over a year or so ago. They’d talked of it loudly when they’d all met up once, and Enjolras hadn’t heard or taken notice. Much like he hadn’t noticed the colour of Grantaire’s shirt that day in the countryside. Just one of the many details he would never forgive himself for missing about Grantaire’s life. 

A jumper was flung carelessly over Grantaire’s shoulder whilst Enjolras stood there, staring at him, lost in all he wanted to say, all he wanted to vocalize, and all that unease spread throughout his veins like blood. 

And Grantaire looked at him again, a look in his eyes Enjolras couldn’t read, something like sadness, or surrender. 

Another moment passed, and Grantaire stepped forward, that look still in his eyes that was beginning to make Enjolras angry, because how could he still not read Grantaire after all this time, and _how_ were they in this mess of a situation where neither of them knew what spanned in the other’s mind. And then Grantaire hesitantly ran a finger and thumb over a drenched curl, water from it beading and running down his skin, and he sighed, like a weight was bearing down upon him. The nails on his fingers were bitten down, raw. 

“I love you.” He whispered to a place just below Enjolras’s eyelashes, and he whispered it like it was an admission of defeat and Enjolras was about to pull him away to question it when Grantaire leaned in and kissed him again, more desperate than before, and Enjolras’s reservations momentarily dissipated at his touch, as Grantaire’s hands suddenly leapt to the sodden coat he was wearing, and yanked it from his body, some new, unexplainable ferocity claiming his movements as his kisses grew deeper, and Enjolras, after a split second of hesitation, pressed himself closer to him, utterly, utterly confused, his mind reeling. 

He’d grown used to Grantaire now. That was, Grantaire’s body, the movements of his tongue and the way he breathed as if he were trying to anchor himself when they were together. Enjolras had grown used to what it was like to kiss someone, to sleep with someone, and over time had let his hesitant movements grow fluid, hands and lips moving together instead of haltingly, and the flicks of his tongue didn’t feel awkward, but instead made Grantaire sigh. But the way they both now stumbled towards the bed, sodden clothes being cast off in hasty clumsiness, still felt dizzyingly different, and Enjolras supposed, as Grantaire pushed him down, his breathing heavy and his wet hair slipping against his forehead, that he would never really be used to Grantaire. He’d always be confusingly, dizzyingly, frustratingly drawn to him, needed him like the oxygen that wasn’t quite enough as their lips crashed together, Grantaire’s fingers winding into his hair, digging into it as he pulled him closer, and he sighed into his mouth. 

And they roughly shed the rest of their damp clothing, lips raw from teeth and kissing, and breathing harsh and there was little gentleness in the way Grantaire later moved against him, any of the cold in the apartment being lost amid the heat of two bodies. But his eyes flitted to Enjolras’s, clouded with a feverish lust and that infuriating look that still seemed like surrender, and Enjolras forced his hands to frame Grantaire’s face, pulling him down for a kiss that did not match the rough and harsh rhythm they had created, so that that look might go, or at least Enjolras did not have to see it, have to have its unease creep over him when his body wanted only Grantaire and the feel of him. 

And in those last moments, Grantaire’s fingers moved, and ran themselves feather light over Enjolras’s leg, tracing the skin from inner hip to knee. A tender movement that didn’t belong in what they’d just pulled themselves into so roughly and so confusingly and Enjolras pulled his forehead from where it had come to rest, sticky against Grantaire’s, and tried to gauge the look in those hazy eyes. But they were averted, long dark eyelashes cast downwards as their chests heaved and breathing rasped. And he began to hear the rain again, hammering at the windowpane. 

They lay like that for a while, minds stammering, hearts thrashing, and any blissed out sentiment that would warm and slow his limbs and brain like sunlight was darkened by Grantaire’s distance, despite the clammy press of his bare skin against his own. Grantaire had asked if Enjolras was angry with him, and in a way he now supposed he was. But most of all he was scared, a new feeling that settled like nausea in his stomach. Scared of this new distance, these averted, unreadable eyes and thin lips that held no smiles. Scared that he had caused that, a thing he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for, like he couldn’t forgive himself for noticing Grantaire, and caring about Grantaire any sooner than he had. 

He made to move, his fingers moving to tuck a still damp curl behind Grantaire’s ear, and Grantaire moved, as if jolted away by Enjolras’s movements, further reminded of whatever darkness he had shrouded himself in.

“I’ve got a class in a bit.” He said, and his eyes were on Enjolras’s lips, the expression in them soft, almost that revering gaze that would creep across his face sometimes. “I…erm, you can stay here?”

Enjolras was silent at that at first, almost amused at the heights of ridiculousness they had reached in the levels of their abysmal communication. Perhaps he deserved the tea stain Courfeyrac had left on his duvet. But he looked at Grantaire, still pressed against him, at some skewed angle on that low mattress after sex that was somewhere between thoughtless and coarse and somehow tender. And he’d never been more confused.

“Have I done something?” He asked, dreading whatever answer may come from Grantaire’s lips. His eyes were still fixed on Enjolras’s lips, but at his words he looked at him at last. And surprise filled his face.

“You?” He repeated a little incredulously. “No. Why would you think that?”

And the anger that Enjolras thought perhaps he felt decided to make itself felt for certain after all, 

“Why _wouldn’t_ I think that?” He snapped, hands coming up to grip Grantaire’s shoulders, keeping him in place in an effort to keep him looking at him. “You’ve been acting like whatever this is since I asked if you wanted to live with me. I get it if you don’t want to, you can just _tell_ me. Tell me, Grantaire. Just say you don’t want to live with me. Don’t look at me like _this_ , like you don’t want to look at me.”

“I want to look at you.” Grantaire murmured, and his fingers traced the hollow of Enjolras’s neck, still damp from sweat. Grantaire’s eyes followed his fingers’ movements, eyelashes dark strokes like the ink he sometimes worked over stiff watercolour paper.

“Then why don’t you?” Enjolras asked him, his tone matching Grantaire’s now, but frustration pitted his stomach, made him feel sick because why had Grantaire avoided him, why was he looking at him as if he were counting down the times he could and Enjolras was _panicking_ because he had the feeling, the subtle, sickening, _crushing_ feeling that maybe he was losing him.

“Grantaire-”

“I really have to go. I’m spectacularly late.” Grantaire said hastily, and he sat up, hot damp skin leaving hot damp skin and instant cold rushed to Enjolras’s chest. Grantaire’s head was turned as he reached for his underwear and yanked his t-shirt over his head, fast movements as he reached for his clothes.

“You’re leaving?” Enjolras asked incredulously, and the anger was rising again, “You’re leaving _now_? Grantaire, what is going on?”

And Grantaire finally turned on him, and the look in his eyes was desperate this time, desperation lining every inch of his face, and those dark shadows that laced the skin beneath his eyes were perhaps more prominent for it, “Can’t you just leave it?”

And the defeat in his voice, the pleading tone of it stalled Enjolras as he lay there, the cold fully enveloping his skin and the rain hammering on the window as Grantaire stood there in that dilapidated apartment, half dressed and tousled, his lips swollen from kissing and a drained despondency draped over every feature, pulling down his shoulders and casting down those usually half smiling lips.

They looked at one another from across that room, Enjolras still twisted in the sheets, all physical pleasure lost in the sight of Grantaire, whose despairing demeanour made Enjolras’s clueless mind ache.

“I could look at you lying like that all day.” Grantaire finally murmured, and he reached blindly for a rucksack that was shoved on a kitchen countertop so his eyes stayed on Enjolras, eyes slightly hooded that looked too tired, far too tired. “Forever. I could look at you forever, and listen to you, and argue with you. But right now, I also want to be anywhere but where I am. I can’t explain it Enjolras. Just don’t ask me to live with you, _please_.” 

“You voice every disagreement you have with me, but you won’t explain this?” Enjolras heard his voice rising, just as Grantaire seemed to be shrinking in on himself, and the fear and frustration that gripped him was channelling out of his mind as fury, “You can’t put any words together to say _why_ you’re looking at me like I’m going to disappear?”

“I need to go.” Grantaire’s voice came weak, almost a murmur, and he wasn’t looking at him again, “I need to go.”

And he did. Enjolras watched him turn and leave his own apartment, feet dragging and shoulders hunched and he couldn’t think of anything to say, his own head pounding, heart hammering and it were as if he had a fever, the cold air making him shiver but his face felt hot. It was like feeling sick, but it was the feeling that Grantaire was moving away and he couldn’t figure out why. And all he could do was think to when he’d asked him so casually to live with him, and wish fervently that he hadn’t, because surely all this was his fault. 

He couldn’t say how long he sat there on Grantaire’s bed, his head spinning, hot blame washing over him, ignoring the cold that stood up the fair hairs along his arms, inhaling the scent of the apartment, that was now an intoxicating and reeling combination of sex, turpentine, cigarettes, acrylic, damp, and Grantaire.

* * *

It was a low buzzing that woke him that night.

He wasn’t even sure he was sleeping, but in some half awake, restless and fitful state that gives no alleviation to exhaustion but speeds time by none the less. 

That fitful, unrestful sleep set him confused at the low buzzing noise, persistent as it drove into Enjolras’s slow, almost consciousness. It took him a moment for his groggy mind to recognize the sound as the door buzzer. And it was Courfeyrac, he knew it, he reflected, bare feet hitting the floor as he clambered dazedly to his feet, stretching his restless, aching limbs. One of his late night, impromptu visits when his eyes shone with an almost feverish anger or enthusiasm at something, visits that had been somewhat blissfully absent of late.

He stumbled to the entryphone, fingers tumbling over its surface, his free hand working over an eyelid. He couldn’t remember how long he’d had this headache, the one that made some recess beneath his eyeballs throb dully.

“What?” He asked, ending the word with clearing his throat, owing to the strangled, tired croak of the pronunciation.

“It’s me.”

Grantaire’s husky tones made Enjolras’s heart slip even through the battered, nasal sounding receiver, and he stared at the entryphone a moment, wondering if this were some part of half consciousness, perhaps he was dreaming. 

But Grantaire spoke again, his voice coming through that intercom, crackling and quiet but undeniably his.

“I don’t mean to push this. But it really is fucking raining.” 

Enjolras traced his fingers over the entryphone, and pressed the buzzer that would unlock the front door of the tenement block, and his mouth felt dry. He looked unseeingly around him as he stood there by the door, the apartment before him swathed in darkness. He could hear the rain, still hammering at windows mostly hidden behind half drawn curtains he vaguely remembered closing in some daze he hadn’t left since leaving Grantaire’s flat. 

He opened the door on the first soft tap, and Grantaire was there, clothed in a thin jacket that hung off his narrow shoulders, hair plastered about his face, skin flushed from the cold.

He hovered on the doorway, swaying slightly as if in indecision.

“Did I wake you?” He asked, and his voice sounded a little strangled. Enjolras caught the scent of alcohol on his breath.

“No.”

Grantaire let out a sigh, and he leaned forwards, pressing his brow against the doorframe, the one eye Enjolras could see fixed on his face, his features lost to the darkness swathing them. And Enjolras thought of the last time they’d stood like this in his apartment, raindrops glistening in Grantaire’s curling hair as he’d professed his supposed worthlessness. There had been moonlight then, spilling across them, and it had been soft and Enjolras’s heart had ached that Grantaire could ever think so badly of himself. It was an almost fury, he supposed, a fury that Grantaire refused to see him just as he was. To see himself how Enjolras saw him. 

“I’m going to ruin this.” Grantaire finally whispered, and his forehead was still pressed against the doorframe, looking defeated, looking at Enjolras with that one eye that gleamed with an expression Enjolras couldn’t read.

And just like that, Enjolras thought that perhaps he understood a little of what had been in Grantaire’s mind these past few days, these days since he’d asked him to live with him. When it had occurred to him that he’d been holding the unvoiced desire that he didn’t want to keep having the conversation of whose place they should go to that night, that he wanted Grantaire to always be there, when the day left the city, and when it flooded it. That was what he had wanted, and Enjolras was not good at repressing what he wanted, and he’d sat there, watching Grantaire smoking and smiling at some secret thought, his fingers stained slightly from charcoal and he’d asked that question that had Grantaire standing here now, looking tired and defeated and perhaps a little drunk, and looking as if his world were about to shatter down around him.

“Why do you think that?” Enjolras asked him, and neither of them had moved. The rain pounded on the windowpane, and the night seemed oddly quiet in spite of it, the rest of the city muted by rainfall. 

Grantaire didn’t answer immediately, just swayed slightly as he leant against the doorframe, but he was watching Enjolras, looking at him with an intensity that Enjolras didn’t know if he hated or loved.

“There’s this light to you.” He finally said, the words coming quiet and hoarse as he watched him, hair dripping, and when he spoke his name he spoke it in an almost revering way. “Enjolras. Like you’re permanently blinding me and I don’t care one fucking bit. I could watch you forever, and that stupid way your eyes light with faith and even if you really are like the sun and I’ll burn out, shrivelled and blind next to you, I’ll watch you.”

And Enjolras’s tired mind tried to make sense of that speech, so like Grantaire, words, perhaps slightly drunken, stumbling and flowing together like the poetry Jehan would scribble on the pretty notepads he’d covered with patterned fabric he’d bought at the Marché Saint-Pierre, high above the south of the city near Sacré Cœur.

“I don’t want to burn you.” He finally said, and his voice sounded as hoarse as Grantaire’s then, sleep dragging at it.

“Then don’t ask me to live with you.” Grantaire said, and his tones was pleading now, “I’ll ruin it, God I don’t know how I haven’t yet.”

That last sentence snapped Enjolras out of the drug-like haze of sleepiness and confusion, and he whipped a hand out and dragged Grantaire into his apartment, slamming the door behind him, thoughtless of neighbours, his grip perhaps a little too tight, his movements perhaps a little too harsh. 

“That’s what this has all been about?” He asked, and Grantaire seemed rather stunned he had grasped such a reaction from him, stumbling slightly as he stood centimetres from him, dripping wet, eyes shining. “Avoiding me and looking like you’re expecting me to just go? You think living me is going to change anything?”

“Of course it fucking will.” Grantaire replied, pulling out of Enjolras’s grasp, “We’ll be _living_ together. I’ll be there all the time. Every day. You can’t want that, you’ll realize you don’t want that,” He paused for a second, a muted breath that deepened the shadows of the dip at the base of his neck, revealed by the stretched, wet fabric of his t-shirt, a breath taken in before words spoken in quiet, painful confession, “And I can’t handle that.”

Enjolras resisted the urge to grab Grantaire’s arm again, as if he could persuade him by force of touch that he wanted him, in every way possible. He let his hands travel his own hair instead, tugging on dishevelled curls, and he didn’t miss Grantaire watching his movements as if he really were some kind of god. He sank back against the arm of the settee, that Grantaire had once slept on so long ago he wasn’t even sure when it had been. Back in the days when he’d been too harsh, too impatient, had looked too uncaringly at him. 

“You know,” He finally said slowly, and he couldn’t work out if it was defiant fury that was hurting his chest, or Grantaire’s defeated expression, the way he was standing there even though he’d broken from Enjolras’s touch, standing there as if he’d run completely dry on any fighting inclination. When he spoke, it was nothing of the fluidity of the speeches he could make before any number of students, but was halting and staggered and made his throat hurt to voice, “You know me well enough, I would have supposed, to know that I am sure in what I want.”

And Grantaire gave him a sad smile.

“That doesn’t mean you’re right.” He said. 

“I know what I want,” Enjolras repeated, getting to his feet properly, and like that he was taller than Grantaire, stepping towards him again, and his face felt hot, his heart hammering, “And I know it’s not half memories of you, memories of when I was awful to you. I know I want you, in amongst and above everything else I want.” He paused, and that queasiness was there again, because now he was talking, but Grantaire so rarely _listened_. “You don’t have to live with me.” He finished, tone quieter, and after a brief hesitation, he reached for Grantaire again. And this time Grantaire let him take his arm, pull him closer, “If you don’t want to live with me. But don’t for one second think that it will change how I- how I feel about you.” 

Grantaire remained silent a long time, letting the rainclouds over Paris fill the silence between them, the gap in the curtains flecking the room with shadows of rain. 

“And how is that?” He finally asked, and Enjolras was sure he hadn’t missed the brief gleam that had lit in his eyes. “How do you feel about me?”

Talk to Grantaire, Courfeyrac had said. And those feelings were so easy to find, but so hard to vocalize to sufficiency, because he so desperately wanted to tell Grantaire just how much he cared, but the words were just so _difficult_ to find in a way he could not comprehend at all, tangled about his heart and his mind and so hard to transfer and unravel onto his tongue.

“I love you.” Was all he finally said. Because that was the apex of it all, a climb he’d been all to slow in making, torturously slow, and he’d tell Grantaire that soon, tell him how sorry he was and how guilty he felt and Grantaire could make of that what he would. But for now he said that, with all his heart behind it, and that nauseous feeling was still there, because Grantaire wasn’t looking at him, and he was absolutely sick from the prospect that Grantaire might never want to smile at him again, at least in a way that was genuine.

And Grantaire looked up, and a small grin was on his lips, that curved one that showed his slightly crooked teeth and lit his eyes that seemed colourless in the darkness but Enjolras knew to be as blue grey as the sky on an overcast day.

“Yeah?” He asked, and his tone was playful. And Enjolras had told him those words before, and he would tell him countless times again. Just like he knew they’d have those days where Grantaire would draw in on himself and want to be left alone, or want   
Enjolras to stay by his side all day. And Enjolras was slowly learning those things. Just as he assumed Grantaire was learning about him. And a lot could change in a year, he reflected, as he nodded and Grantaire’s grin grew less sad, and his eyes grew brighter. March last year had brought warm sunshine to Paris, and perhaps this time it would too. But this March would have Grantaire in his life in a way last March had been devoid of, and that put a gloomy stain on those days, Enjolras contemplated. 

“I love you.” He repeated, for emphasis, and Grantaire’s hand reached for his, their fingers twining around one another in the darkness that in a few hours would be fading to an overcast sunrise, silence punctured by rain and breathing that was slowing as serenity washed over and carried away those frantic conversations that would probably never end, but would never drown them, Enjolras was sure now.

And not for the first time, Enjolras considered how well their hands seemed to slot together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I dooo declare I do believe I have finished this mini series at long last I'm so sorry I took so long to update this was supposed to be up in January and well that didn't quite happen did it.  
> As always, come say hi/ask questions/cry over les mis with me on [tumbleurghh](http://icarus-drunk.tumblr.com/) and thanks to everyone who has read and told me how much they enjoyed it you have honestly made me so unbelievably happy C':

**Author's Note:**

> It seems unlike Victor Hugo I'm unable to let things die hurr
> 
> Ok basically this is just three mini stories (if you can even call them that)
> 
> Expect exr fluff, Christmas...and Paris of course cos it's me let's be honest C:


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